Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords Coming To the iPhone/Touch

Finally the news I have been waiting for…..

Touch Podium:

“Who wants a puzzle game? Who wants another puzzle game? How about another? Well hold on tight folks cause, it’s just been announced that D3Publisher and TransGaming will be bringing Puzzle Quest: Challenge of the Warlords to the iPhone OS! I’ve played this on my PSP and been lovin’ it ever since. It mixes the best of strategy, bejeweled and magic all in one package. But who knows when it’ll be out, so you can take a breather for now.”

Tapulous to Offer NIN Licensed Version of ‘Tap Tap Revenge’

Touch Arcade:

“TechCrunch reports that Tapulous has announced that they will be offering a premium version of their rhythm game with a Nine Inch Nails
theme. The new version will offer over a dozen NIN songs from its last
two albums and may pave the way for additional licensed content in the
future.

Tap Tap Revenge [App Store] is the iPhone version of Dance Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero and gameplay involves tapping the screen to the music. Tap Tap Revenge has seen enormous success in the App Store with over a million downloads as of August 2nd, 2008.

The current version of Tap Tap Revenge remains a free download. There’s no indication how much the premium version would cost.”

New Characters, Level Coming to Force Unleashed as DLC

1UP:

“LucasArts has some big downloadable content plans for Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, as they’ve revealed
to Kotaku that they’ll soon release a new campaign level and four new
character skins for the popular Star Wars title. Pricing and
availability details haven’t been set, but the DLC pack will,
naturally, be made available for both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

The new character models include Luke Skywalker (pictured), Obi-Wan Kenobi, Ki-Adi-Mundi (aka this guy, for non-Star Wars fans), and Kit Fisto (aka this, uh, thing,
for non-Star Wars fans). These characters were partly chosen “based on
what we heard from fans,” according to executive producer Haden
Blackman. “But some were from us. We thought Ki-Adi-Mundi or Kit Fisto
would be exciting to see running around in our game,” he explained.

The
new level will be set in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant, where Darth
Vader’s Secret Apprentice will travel to in order to try and learn more
about his father. The level will reportedly be smaller than the Raxis
Prime level in the game, but bigger than Cloud City, and it’s one of
about eight levels cut from the game. “We had a list of 20 locations in
our exploration phase,” Blackman said. “Those got whittled down. Which
ones were viable and which weren’t. The temple hung on and hung on and
hung on. We had to make cuts right before production and it was one of
those.”

Surgical instruments from ancient Rome

Boing Boing:

“It’s something of a myth that pre-industrial doctoring was all leeches and cups. There was real expertise — of a sort — in field surgery. Such work, being about getting warriors and workers back into their game, lacks the historical appeal of the more “philosophical” medical arts studied by academics.

The Romans: now they knew how to remove a thing or two. As for the device pictured above, if you can’t guess what it is, you probably don’t want to know.”

‘Kroll’ Arrives in the App Store

Touch Arcade:

“That was quick. After just profiling Digital Legend’s side-scrolling fighter, Kroll [App Store] has appeared in the App Store.

The developer provides the following feature list:

• KROLL will immerse gamers in amazing 3-D action with its groundbreaking technology built explicitly for iPhone touch screen with its full graphics capabilities.
• Epic environments enhance the iPhone gameplay experience, with hectic fighting at the mountainside, inside molten magma mines, and high above active volcano in magical floating prison. To learn the secret behind the legend of KROLL, gamers must conquer mythic enemies and creatures.
• Bash’n’Crush your way through nine hectic levels destroying ever increasing amount of enemy hordes and play through awesome cinematic boss battles.
• Extend your experience through 3 difficulty level (Normal, Hard and Insane) for more and more crushing action. Scoring system keeps track of your progress.
• iPhone and iPod touch special features: Use the accelometer of your device to activate special attacks and the touch screen for controlling your character.”

Kroll is available for $7.99. App store link: Kroll

PrinterShare Eases Remote Printing Across Operating Systems

Lifehacker:

“Windows/Mac/Linux (All platforms): Free peer-to-peer printer-sharing tool PrinterShare cuts out the network fiddling and router tweaking necessary to share a printer from, say, a Mac system at home to your Windows PC at work. The PrinterShare system requires signing up each computer on your network and assigning it a name, but once you’re set up, sharing and accessing printers is truly simple. Files you send to be printed remotely are encrypted by default, and free accounts print, unfortunately, with a cover sheet that includes an ad. For those trying to make connections between troublesome systems, PrinterShare might save some frustration. Got another, non-ad-supported GUI tool? Share it in the comments. PrinterShare is a free download for Windows, Mac, and Linux systems. Update: Vista systems require a UAC work-around for full two-way printing.”

PrinterShare [via FreewareGenius.com]

There Really Needs To Be A TF2 Movie…

Rock Paper Shotgun: “…or so machinima of this calibre makes me think. Splendid, Looney Toonian stuff.”

Kenneth Branagh Directing Thor?

OK, Thor, probably part of the eventual Avengers movie, just got MUCH more interesting…

Variety:

“Kenneth Branagh is negotiating to direct “Thor,” the next Marvel Comics property that will be turned into a live-action film by Marvel Studios. Pic will be released in 2010.

Marvel Studios chief Kevin Feige’s choice of Branagh is surprising, as Branagh hasn’t really directed an action-heavy film since his debut on “Henry V,” a bloody telling of the British king’s conquest of France. 

Branagh is the latest in a string of directors — such as Jon Favreau (“Iron Man”), Christopher Nolan (the Batman franchise) and Gavin Hood (“X-Men Origins: Wolverine”) — with arthouse roots taking on big-budget comicbook fare.

Marvel will set a distributor for “Thor” shortly.”

TagScanner Renames and Tags Your Digital Music

Lifehacker:

“Windows only: Rename the thousands of MP3 files in your digital music
library and add or edit tags, lyrics, and album art in one fell swoop
with free utility TagScanner. Not only can TagScanner clean up the
artist, album, song title, and track number information for your
digital music files, it can rename your songs based on a pattern you
define (like %artist% - %title%), it can make music
playlists, and search online databases like freedb and Amazon to
automatically tag music missing information. It includes a built-in
player as well so you can listen to tracks while you edit. We’ve recommended Media Monkey to whip your music’s metadata into shape, but TagScanner looks like a solid alternative. TagScanner is a free download for Windows only.”

TagScanner [via Download Blog]

‘Heroes’ Causes BitTorrent Boom

Digg: “Two fresh episodes of the US hit series ‘Heroes’ were released Monday
night. In the day that followed each episode was downloaded well over a
million times by BitTorrent users all over the world, making it the
busiest day ever on many torrent sites.”